Tipsheet

CNN Host Roasted for Not Understanding How the United States Work

Ellie Bufkin
Ellie Bufkin  |  April 12, 2020 2:00 PM

CNN's Brian Stelter made waves over the weekend when he tweeted a critique of President Trump that seemed to show a lack of comprehension about how the United States government was designed. 

"Admin officials 'say the White House has made a deliberate political calculation that it will better serve Trump’s interest to put the onus on governors — rather than the federal government — to figure out how to move ahead,' Let that quote sink in...," Stelter wrote on Friday. 

The veteran anchor and host of "Reliable Sources," a show created ostensibly as a fact checker for other media sources, shared his thoughts as a quote from unidentified "admin officials," but was quickly corrected online. 

"Yes, the U.S. Constitution is a hundreds-year-long plot to help Trump win re-election. Excellent take," said journalist Mollie Hemingway. "Also, it's not a 'quote' but an unsupported assertion based on reporters' dubious and unverifiable interpretation of what they claim anon sources told them."

Stelter's tweet linked to an article from the Washington Post which was also critical of Trump's handling of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic but chided what they perceived as the president's lack of a plan, not his yielding power to state and local government. 

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The quote which Stelter clearly attributed to "admin officials," was actually a quote from the authors of the Washington Post article. 

The president and his top advisers have fixated almost exclusively on plans to reopen the U.S. economy by the end of the month, though they haven’t detailed how they will do so without triggering another outbreak. President Trump has been especially focused on creating a second coronavirus task force aimed at combating the economic ramifications of the virus. 

Administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations, say the White House has made a deliberate political calculation that it will better serve Trump’s interest to put the onus on governors — rather than the federal government — to figure out how to move ahead. (Emphasis added)

The article did not offer any critique of the president for tapping governors and local legislations to choose their own regulations and assess the risk to local communities. Leaving power with the local, elected officials is a tenet of federalism and was carefully designed by the founding fathers to avoid overreach and power grabs from the federal government.